NMFA 2017 End of Project Evaluation consultant

Role: End of Project Evaluation of the NMFA 2017 Project

Funded by: NMFA

Time Frame of Assignment: 2 July 2018 – 17 August 2018 (22 working days)

Location:  North (Tripoli), Akkar and Beirut/Mount Lebanon Governorates - Lebanon

Project Background

During the 2016-2017 academic year, almost 200,000 Syrian children between the age of 3 and 17 were enrolled in Lebanese schools. Although this has represented a 30% increase from the beginning of the previous academic year, almost 48% Syrian children were still out of school.

Syrian children continue to face numerous barriers to accessing formal education, including transportation and associated costs, distance to schools, lack of familiarity with the curriculum or language of instruction, and lack of adequate psychosocial and special needs support. About 10% of children enrolled for the 2016-17 academic year were still not attending school as of 1 December 2016. As such, there was a huge need for Save the Children- Lebanon (SCI) to work with Ministry of Education and Higher Education and United Nations agencies to sensitise communities on the importance of education and promote access to education services, as well as directly support children with non-formal education programmes.

Through this project Save The Children Lebanon aimed to continue implementing a comprehensive and holistic education programme to support children’s enrolment, retention and learning, in Basic Education and Early Childhood Care and Development.

The project’s duration is from 1 June 2017 to 30 June 2018 and was implemented in North (Tripoli), Akkar, and Beirut/Mount Lebanon Governorates. To tackle the above objective, the project’s design included the implementation of the Basic Literacy and Numeracy approach to reach children currently out of school with quality education opportunities, and to bridge the learning gap and support the transition to formal schools. It also included the provision of Home Work Support to provide academic subject support to children enrolled in formal education, and the implementation of ECCD programmes in order to provide them with a safe, secure, inclusive and child-friendly spaces, and deliver play-based stimulation and foster the brain development.

The project aimed to target 2,550 Syrian refugee children aged 3 to 14 year-old. Beyond children, the project’s main targets were also their caregivers, teachers and the wider community.

Objectives of the Evaluation

This End of Project Evaluation aims at evaluating the project outcomes, objectives and impact, with a focus on understanding the outcomes for children in particular from the interventions in Education. The Evaluator will be answering the following main question:

Did Save the Children Lebanon’s Education intervention, contribute to the fulfillment of children’s rights to education and development in the North (Tripoli), Akkar, and Beirut and Mount Lebanon governorates of Lebanon?

The purpose of this final project evaluation is to assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of the “strengthening access to and retention in pre-primary and formal basic education in Lebanon” project. The project final evaluation will focus on all the activities carried out as part of the project’s objectives. Hence, the evaluation will address the following:

• Identification of key project’s challenges, risks and opportunities as well as the strengths and weaknesses, in the light of its prospective continuation.
• Measurements of key attributes of processes and implementation using different technical methods.
• Recommendations on how to improve the design and/or operational processes of the project to cause more impact and increase implementation efficiency and effectiveness, and to attain project’s sustainability.

Deliverables

The evaluation team will submit three reports and two presentations to the Save the Children Lebanon Steering Committee:

• Assignment timeline: The assignment timeline should include clear dates and deadlines of deliverables beginning by the submission date of the inception report.
• Inception report: Following the desk review and prior to beginning of the field work, an inception report will be produced subject to approval by Save the Children Lebanon. This report will detail a draft work plan with a summary of the primary information needs, the methodology to be used, and a work plan/schedule for the field visits and major deadlines. With respect to methodology, the inception report will include a description of how data will be collected and a sampling framework, data sources, and drafts of suggested data collection tools such as questionnaires and interview guides. It should also include the draft of the final report outline (i.e. Table of Content). 

Once the report is finalized and accepted, the evaluation team must submit a request for any change in strategy, methodology or approach to the Save the Children Lebanon MEAL Director.

• Draft report: A draft evaluation report will be submitted to Save the Children Lebanon MEAL Director who will lead the revision process with the reference group and provide feedback within two weeks of receipt of the draft report. Quantitative and qualitative data collected and analysis developed should be annexed to the draft report.
• Final report: The Final Evaluation Report should include a two page executive summary that summarizes the key lessons learned, conclusions and recommendations. It should also include best practices case studies that can be shared with Save the Children Lebanon technical and management staff. Quantitative and qualitative data collected and analysis developed should be annexed to the draft report.

All material collected in the undertaking of the evaluation process should be lodged with the Save the Children Lebanon Person to be referenced by the MEAL Director prior to the termination of the contract.

Presentation of findings:

• At the end of the field work and after submission of the draft report, the evaluation team will present preliminary findings to validate and prioritize learning at the Save the Children Lebanon Lebanon level
• After submission of the Final Evaluation Report, the evaluation team will provide a final presentation for relevant stakeholders

Essential Competencies Required

Save the Children Lebanon seeks expressions of interest from people with the following skills/qualifications and expertise:

• Expertise in Education approaches
• Expertise in Education programming evaluations
• Sound and proved experience in conducting evaluations, particularly utilization and learning focused evaluations.
• Expertise in qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques
• Expertise in participative evaluations with focus on child participation and designing evaluation tools

Application Process

• Interested consultants or consultancy firms are required to send an expression of interest email to the email address below using the following subject line “NMFA 2017 End of Project Evaluation consultant”. Upon expressing interest, the interested consultant or consultancy firm will receive the detailed TOR based on which they would submit their proposal. The proposal should include the methodology, the CV(s) of the consultant(s), and their respective rates per day.
• The deadline for submitting proposals is: 25 May 2018
• Submit completed proposals to lebanonhrb@savethechildren.org